Six Degrees of Separation
by ifyouevercomebackx
Summary: "Their tale is one of the epic and tearjerking love stories of our generation. When I am 80 and my grandchildren ask for stories, I will tell them theirs, because it deserves to be heard. They deserve to be heard." Demi has been there for everything: the break-up, the reconnection, the engagement. She tells the story of Nick and Miley through her eyes and what she should have done.
1. Prologue

Had I known in 2007 what I know now, maybe things would be different. Maybe I could have warned them that this weird and twisted relationship they have would turn out to be poison in their lives. Maybe I could have told them that somebody else would beat him to the chase and somebody else would get his girl. Maybe I could even have mentioned how much they would change, both as a couple and as individuals, not always for the better.

I have experienced everything with them. I have seen them in the prime of their relationship. I have seen them while he is missing her and she is missing him, and I have seen their relationship fall apart. I have seen them as they break up and hate each other for months on end. I have seen them as they 'reconnect'. I have seen them as they break each other's hearts all over again. Perhaps the most painful thing I have seen is him wanting her more than anything and her wanting him just as much, but neither of them willing to grow up and admit that they had been wrong all that time ago.

I first met Nick in 2007. We were filming Camp Rock, the film that would catapult both our careers to unimaginable heights. We had this connection on a musical level. Though I never felt a romantic link to him, we understood each other through our love of music, and it brought us closer. He introduced me to Miley, and that introduction is exactly what allows me to look at two of my closest friends every day and wonder why I didn't help them a little bit more at the time. I think back and remember their history, and I think about what I could have and should have done. The things that would have changed everything for them.

Now 2012 is coming to a close. Nick and I are in the studio, and he's writing possibly the most heartfelt thing he's ever written. Of course, it's about her. It always is. I listen to this song he's working on and it hits me that I could have been the one to change things. I could have been the one to warn them that what they were doing to each other was toxic and would never end well, but I wasn't. I let them hurt each another and I let them hurt themselves.

The romance of Nick and Miley is like something from a film. As far as I'm concerned, their tale is one of the epic and tearjerking love stories of our generation. When I'm eighty and my grandchildren ask for stories, I will tell them theirs, because it deserves to be heard. _They_ deserve to be heard.

I plan to tell their story to whoever will listen, because I want it to invoke comfort. Comfort in the knowledge that, somewhere, someday, there is going to be a boy that loves each and every one of us as Nick loved Miley. I plan to tell their story to whoever will listen, and I plan to start with **you**.

* * *

**I came up with this one day when I was listening to 'Six Degrees of Separation' by the Script, and it was originally going to be told through Miley's eyes. However, I was thinking about it, and I thought that it would be interesting to hear the story of Nick and Miley through somebody else's eyes; somebody who has seen everything. It occurred to me that Demi has been friends with both Nick and Miley, and she will have heard both sides of their story, so I thought it would be interesting to hear what I think Demi thinks about their relationship, and the things she possibly thinks she could have done to stop them from falling apart.**

**I must add that a lot of things will come from my imagination. I obviously do not know Demi, and I can't pick her brain for what she thinks about them. There will be conversations and events and details that will obviously be completely fictional, because I don't know everything that happened. **

**Hopefully you all enjoyed the prologue :-)**


	2. Summer 2007

**Summer 2007**

I remember the first time I ever met Miley. I had been filming a scene with the girls when I saw Joe look at his phone and move away from where he had been watching beside some of the crew. Desperate to see where he had gone (I guess I kind of had a crush on him), I tried to get the scene perfect so that I could leave and go find him.

My scene wrapped up after a little while, and I wandered across the set, looking everywhere for him. I rambled aimlessly across the set for at least thirty minutes and searched every possible place Joe could be hiding, but he was certainly difficult to locate.

Eventually, I found him with his brothers near their parents. That was the first time I saw her. I saw a girl with gentle brown curls and her back to me, and I couldn't help but wonder who she was. I probably should have figured it out, but I didn't. Instead, I walked over and grinned like an idiot at them.

"Hey, guys!" I called.

Nick turned around and smiled. "Demi, hey. Come and join us." His hand was clutching the girl's hand tightly, and he looked happier than I had seen him since we arrived in Canada. "This is my girlfriend, Miley." He looked down at her, and I saw this intense love in his eyes that I hadn't seen in anybody our age in anything but movies. To him, just looking at Miley made everything okay. "I don't think that you've met, have you?"

She turned around to face me. I had heard about her from both the media and the boys, especially Nick, but none of them had done her justice. She was stunningly beautiful. The photoshopped photos in magazines and on gossip sites didn't even show how truly magnificent she was. And there was no other word for Miley but magnificent. Even though she was probably the most famous teenager in the world, she looked like any other girl who was hanging out with her boyfriend. I had expected her to be glamourous with some kind of sparkling dress and heels designed for some fancy premiere on the red carpet, but she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She looked like any other girl who was hanging out with her boyfriend. Her features were exquisite, and I could see why Nick loved her so much. Her crystal eyes sparkled, and every time she looked up at Nick, her eyes kind of glazed over and she just stared at him with such adoration that, in a way, I felt like an outsider. A smile graced her face the entire time she looked at me. She made me feel so comfortable, and she was so easy to be around.

"Hey. I've heard a lot about you from the boys," she said. She hugged me, which kind of shocked me, but I hugged her back. "They tell me that you're going to go far. I can't wait to hear your album next year."

I had never met this girl before in my life, but somehow, Miley managed to make me feel like we had known each other our entire lives. There wasn't any word for her but warm. She could light up a conversation with a single 'hello', and she treated everyone with such respect and understanding. We had spent less than five minutes together and I already was looking up to her and wishing I could be a little bit more like her.

She talked and she laughed the entire time. She was friendly – friendlier than anyone else I had met since I had gotten my part in Camp Rock. She made me feel comfortable around here, even though we had only been introduced five minutes beforehand. Really, when the four of them were together, they were like one happy family, and I was just an intruder who had gotten to know her three best friends, but she made me feel like I was one of them, even though I knew that I could never have the same connection with the brothers that she had. She brightened every conversation, and I could see just by looking at Nick that she illuminated his life just as much.

Miley and I didn't become close during her visit to the set – how could we when she spent every waking moment with Nick? However, I spoke to her enough to see how much she loved Nick, and how alike they were. They were matched to a T. She was perfect for him and he was perfect for her. She, like him, had come from a musical home. She loved and appreciated music from growing up with a father like hers. She made him laugh when no one else could even get him to smile, while he kept her grounded and reminded her that sometimes things just didn't work out. They kept each other level and made sure that nothing tipped off balance. They looked at each other like the other was some kind of radiant angel. I was happy for him. Before her visit, I had noticed that he was holding back. Joe had even commented that Nick wasn't himself without her there. Even if I didn't know Miley that well, I had judged that she was a wonderful person both inside and out. They were well matched, and even though they were only fourteen, they seemed like they would be together forever.

When I saw them together for the first time, I never could have dreamed that things would work out the way they did. I never could have guessed that their break-up would be so bitter, or that so many songs would be written about their heartbreak, or even that they would go from spending every second together to hardly even speaking. They went from laughing and having silly fights about nothing to stealing hostile glances across arenas and communicating only through their lyrics. None of us could have guessed that the two people we had labelled 'the perfect couple' would ever become so distant and so different. Nobody could have seen into the future, but if they could have, I don't think that any of us would have believed it.

After all, how could a couple who were so in love become so venomous towards one another? How do two people who have loved each other for as long as they can remember go from having a relationship filled with nothing but endearment and devotion turn so sour and toxic?

If I had known, I would have warned him to make those phonecalls and those memories last, because here we are, over five years later, and he has almost been brought to tears numerous times, all because neither one appreciated what they had together or how easily it could be taken away from them.

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_Thank you all for your reviews! Please continue to let me know what you think. I absolutely adore writing this, and I love to hear what you all think of it x_


	3. November 2007

**November 2007**

Their tour started later that year. I remember Nick being delighted that he would get to be with Miley 24/7, and I remember Kevin and Joe being happy that their little brother was happy. I was glad that they were moving on from filming to what they loved doing most – music. Of course I was going to miss spending time with the three boys I had grown closest to over such a short space of time, but I knew that we would still stay in touch.

I went to their show in Los Angeles, and I stood backstage with the boys' parents, watching them on stage together. Looking back, I probably should have realised that Nick's insistence that their relationship stay a secret would be their downfall, but I didn't think about it. All I thought about was how happy they were together when they were alone, and how I genuinely believed that they would stay together forever. At the time, how was I supposed to know that they would fall apart so suddenly?

The boys came off stage, and Nick went directly to his dressing room. Joe stood beside me and sighed.

"What's the matter with Nick?" I asked.

"He had a fight with Miley on her bus earlier. They aren't speaking and now he's in a bad mood yet again."

I looked at the image of Miley on the television screen. She was performing energetically and engaging with her fans, but I could see in her eyes that she was worrying about something, and I knew that it was Nick. It wasn't exactly difficult to work it out, after all - for someone as bright-eyed and cheerful as Miley, anyone could work out when something was wrong.

The concert ended and she came off stage. She walked straight past everybody else and walked straight to Nick's dressing room. Joe quickly dashed after her, calling for her to stop and give Nick some space to think, but she just thumped on the door and walked right through without waiting for Nick to tell her to come in.

"How dare you!" I heard her yell.

"What are you talking about now, Miley?"

"How dare you act like this is my fault! You started this, then you tell me that it's all _my_ fault and ignore me the second that we get on stage together! You're supposed to be _supportive_, Nick. You aren't meant to just blank me the second things stop going your way!"

We all went silent as they argued in the dressing room. Their voices were raised and echoed down the hallway. There was the odd injection from Joe, trying to get them both to calm down and talk rationally. Perhaps it was because they're both such passionate people, but they ignored him and continued to scream at each other. Neither ever wanted to admit that they were wrong (hell, they're still that way), and they both take their beliefs so seriously that they will argue until they're blue in the face just to defend them.

It was tense among us all as we stood quietly, waiting for the screaming match to finish We all listened as doors slammed and tears were shed, waiting for the situation to cool down before anyone made a move to comfort either one.

"Don't worry about them," his mother said, noticing the look on my face. "They've been like this a lot lately. They'll work through it."

"They fight like this a lot?" I asked, shocked that the perfect couple had been torn to pieces in such a short space of time.

She shrugged. "It's what they do. We've learned to ignore it now. They'll be back to normal by breakfast tomorrow morning. Just you wait, honey."

I listened to her, because that's what I wanted to believe. They had been this power couple for me - this epic lighthouse that dictated exactly how a perfect teen romance should be. I looked at them to show me that not all relationships turned sour; that things could work out for couples as young as they were. At the age we all were, they were so in love that it gave me hope. I wanted to have a relationship exactly like theirs. I wanted somebody to look at me the way Nick looked at Miley. I wanted someone to make me laugh and smile the way he did Miley. I wanted someone to cherish me like Nick cherished Miley, and put me on this enormous pedestal the way he did Miley. To me, they really were like Prince Charming and Cinderella. Even though they both had their flaws and they fought like cats and dogs, they loved each other infinitely and unconditionally. Their relationship was, as cheesy as it sounded, like a firework and a fuse. Without her, he didn't reach his full potential, but when she was around, he exploded and became this magnificent shower of light and colour.

I should have seen the signs at the time. I should have warned them that his fear of going public was tearing them apart. I should have told him that they couldn't keep going the way they were going without crashing and burning. I should have gotten closer to her then and told her that things weren't turning out the way they should have for two people as in love as Nick and Miley.

There were late night phonecalls from Joe after they moved on from Los Angeles, asking for advice on how to help a heartbroken Nick after yet another fight with Miley. Joe filled me in on everything that was happening with them. Their arguments were becoming more frequent and more fiery, and they stopped speaking for longer periods of time. Their passionate personalities were clashing, and it was tearing them apart. Neither was willing to step down and admit that they were wrong, mainly because they were both too stubborn to look at the other person's viewpoint and accept that their opinion wasn't the only one that was right in the situation.

The following month, their final fight came, knocking the relationship with a fatal blow, and everything changed.


	4. December 2007

**December 2007**

Though I didn't get to know Miley well at the time, their break-up the following month hit me hard. It was as if someone had taken the hopes of every fifteen year old girl and shattered them to pieces. Their relationship was the envy of every teenage girl, and the fact that it was over showed us all that nothing lasts forever, no matter how resilient we think something is. I had put their relationship on a pedestal, and the concept of it being over was inconceivable. They had spent their time together in Canada that summer being so in love and happy to have time together. My dreams of a relationship just like theirs with my very own Prince Charming had disintegrated, and it tore me apart to know that two people who were destined to be together had been ripped apart.

He called me at one in the morning on the night of the break-up, and the sadness in his voice broke my heart.

"I ended it," he whispered down the line.

"What are you talking about?" I asked. Of course I knew what he was referring to just by the tone of his voice, but I had needed some kind of confirmation that it was real; that the star couple really were over.

"I ended it with Miley." His voice cracked as he spoke. "We were fighting and everything was falling apart, so I ended it."

I could hear him trying to hold back tears, and it hurt to know that, as a friend, I wasn't able to give him a pat on the back and tell him that everything was going to be okay. I couldn't tell him that everything was going to fix itself with Miley, mainly because I wasn't sure that it would. Sure, I could let him know that he could talk to me whenever, but I wasn't going to be able to repair his relationship with Miley like it was some kind of broken vase that could be glued back together. Until he either got over her or got back together with her, he wasn't going to be happy, and the fact that there was nothing I could do to cheer him up even slightly was like a knife twisting in my heart.

"What happened?"

"It was just another fight that spiraled out of control," he replied, his voice hoarse and tired. "We were shouting and yelling at each other outside her bus and she said that if I had such an issue with the way she acted then maybe we weren't good together, so I told her that she was right and walked away." He sounded like a little kid as he let out a small noise of despair. "I left her alone in the rain, Demi. I just left her standing there."

There wasn't much I could say to make it better. Heck, I didn't know what I _could_ say. He was pouring his heart out to me about how things had ended with Miley, and because of my lack of knowledge on her personality, I couldn't even give him the slightest pointer on how to make it up to her.

With nothing else to offer him, I let him talk. I let him tell me all the things he loved most about her, and I let him tell me about how perfect their relationship had been before they fell apart. I let him talk about what he would miss most about her, and I listened while he worried about how he was going to be able to cope with finishing the tour while they were over. Obviously he was still in love with her, and even then, a part of me knew that he always would be. It was almost impossible to break the kind of bond he had with Miley, and he would never stop looking at her with that lovestruck, awed expression.

"I love her, Demi," he murmured. "I'm _in_ love with her. I'm just not sure that I can do this with her anymore."

His world was falling apart, and there was nothing I could do to help him. I couldn't morph myself into Miley, and I couldn't make it better. All I could do was listen to him while he worked everything out in his head.

I suggested he write a song about it – after all, that's what he does best when he needs to let his emotions out. I suggested that maybe he should give it a few days and then talk to her about it. I suggested that he stop the bus, get on hers and spend the night working through whatever issues they had. But Nick was stubborn (who am I kidding, he still is), and he didn't want to have to admit that he had been wrong to walk away. He wasn't ready to tell her that she meant more to him than anyone else could ever know. Perhaps it was their stubbornness that tore them apart, but perhaps it was what they needed to wake them up to the reality of their situation.

To me, as I think about their relationship now, things could have been different. That night was the pivotal point in their relationship. What happened that night was crucial in defining what would happen for them in the future, and they had the chance to either turn it into something positive or let it pull them to pieces. They had both let one another slip out of their grasp, even though they loved each other beyond measure. For all I know, had Nick followed my suggestions that night, things could have been different for them. They could have avoided the months they spent hating each other and having song wars. They could have prevented the years they spent trying to make each other jealous with various other relationships. The stares of heartache across red carpets and crowded rooms all could have been avoided if one of them had been mature enough to admit they were wrong.

He loved her and she loved him. Part of me thinks that they should still be together now. But their relationship was killing them. The fighting and the arguments were toxic and poisonous and draining, and neither of them could have coped with it for much longer. However, a relationship shouldn't be defined by its downfall. It should be defined by the highlights; the things that made them happy. To me, Nick and Miley are like this shining star in the massive atmosphere of relationships. I don't view them as the couple who went from spending every second they could together to purposely avoiding events to avoid each other. I see them as the couple who spent a lot of good times together; a couple whose relationship ran its course, just as a lot of them do.

He whispered down the phone that night about how much he loved her, and it truly hurt me to hear that. It hurt me because I knew that it was ultimately best for everybody if they just went their separate ways and tried to move on with their lives. But that didn't stop me rooting for them.


	5. March 2008

**March 2008**

"Have you seen it?" Selena demanded angrily.

I knew what she was talking about, of course. She was talking about Miley's parody of us with her friend, Mandy. I could tell just by Selena's tone that she was pretty annoyed about it, but it hadn't bothered me. In fact, I actually found it kind of funny. It wasn't the end of the world, and I wasn't too upset by it. It was a little bit of fun on their part.

"Yeah, I saw it," I answered.

"What is her problem? We haven't done _anything_ to her!"

Strictly speaking, that wasn't true. Sure, _I _hadn't done anything to Miley. Unfortunately, I couldn't say the same for Selena.

I knew how she felt about Nick. I knew that she liked him, and that she would have done anything for him to be as hung up on her as he was on Miley. She wanted him to write songs about her like he did about Miley, and she wanted him to see her the way he saw Miley. She wanted to see that spark in Nick's eye when he talked about Miley, but for her instead. She wanted him cherish her and worship her and be wholeheartedly devoted to his love for her like he was for Miley. She would have - and eventually she did - change things about herself to please him. She did things that weren't in her nature, and constantly got me to invite him and his brothers out with us, just so they could hang out.

It didn't help that we were being labelled as Miley's 'replacements', especially Selena. Miley wasn't stupid – she had clearly seen that Selena was moving up in both the media and in Nick's opinion, and she obviously didn't like it. So did I blame Miley for the video? No.

"We have to get her back."

"I know that you would never do anything to get revenge, Selena, especially not for everyone to see. It was a joke."

"Why did she do this?"

I knew, but I didn't tell her. I had figured out that, although I hadn't gotten to know Miley well, she was still heartbroken over what had happened with Nick. She had come to view Selena as someone who was trying to fill her place, both where her career and Nick were concerned. It was all just a series of misunderstandings.

Selena didn't know the full story about what had happened with Nick and Miley. Nick had never divulged that delightful little nugget of information, and it wasn't my place to fill her in. It was Nick's story to tell, and if he had never brought it up after that night he called me, who was I to intrude on both his relationship with Miley and his relationship with Selena? _He_ had been dating Miley, not me, and it was his job to tell his prospective girlfriend about his history with someone who viewed Selena as a threat.

I let Selena moan and complain about how she had done nothing wrong, because that was just what I did. I listened to my friends because that was what they needed me to do. They didn't need me to tell them what I thought or who was right or wrong. They didn't even need advice. They just needed to know that there was somebody there to listen to them while they tried to work through their issues.

Selena's feelings for Nick were never going to end well. I always knew that, and I probably should have warned her that, when it came to Nick, Miley would always be his first choice. Anyone with a working pair of eyes could see that. But Selena didn't. She ignored the songs and the signs and she even ignored her friends, because she wanted to believe that Nick loved her.

Selena always has been and probably always will be my best friend, but the first time around, she was only ever his rebound girl. He was hurting after Miley, and he used her to try and push his feelings for his ex-girlfriend aside. I should have stepped in and stopped it from happening. I did nothing, and maybe that makes everything that happened between the three of them my fault.

Miley was Nick's number one, even when he was flirting with Selena. While he texted Selena during the day and acted like everything was fine, he went home, sat at his piano or on his bed with a guitar in his lap and continued to write songs for Miley. Maybe those songs would bring her back to him and maybe they wouldn't, but either way, he needed to let his emotions out, and that was how he did it.

The video didn't offend me like it offended Selena. It offended Nick and his brothers more than it offended me. To me, it only confirmed the sad truth that the three boys who had been Miley's best friends a year beforehand had suddenly turned on her, all because things had ended badly with her and Nick. Two of her best friends had left her in the lurch over something that wasn't really anything to do with them. Sure, there was all that sibling loyalty crap, but sibling loyalty didn't mean abandoning a friend in her time of need. Sibling loyalty didn't call for you to look for reasons to hate the girl you had once seen as a sister.

That was the decisive difference between Selena and me. She, like the boys, was looking for reasons to hate Miley, not because she wanted to be in Miley's position but because she wanted the one that Miley had that Selena could never have – Nick's love.

Perhaps the saddest part of the story is the simple and often unrecognised fact that, throughout everything, they still loved each other. Nick continued to write about her, and Miley continued to write about him. But their relationship had been diminished into this taboo subject that we all avoided like the plague, and it killed me. I knew that they still loved each other, but I couldn't even tell him to man up and fight for what he wanted, because he didn't want to hear it. He was stubborn and difficult and didn't want to admit that he was wrong that night in December.

Maybe, just maybe, if I had stopped worrying about getting caught in the middle, I could have stopped everything that happened.


	6. July 2008

**July 2008**

Selena and Nick became official in the summer of 2008. I knew why he had suddenly decided that Selena was good enough to be his proper girlfriend. There were rumours flying around within the circle of people we knew that Miley had been seeing her co-star in the Hannah Montana movie, Lucas, and I knew that it had driven Nick crazy to just think about her with somebody else. The thing was, he wouldn't admit it. He refused to confess that she still had an effect on him, because that would have shown that he still cared, and caring for Miley meant reliving the heartbreak he had gone through that previous winter.

So he moved on with Selena, and I couldn't blame him for that. It had been more than six months since he and Miley had finished things, and it was time for him to work past the things that were holding him back from finding somebody else. He had spent too much time avoiding commitment and moping around over his ex-girlfriend. While I was rooting for them, I knew it was time for him to move on.

I observed Miley that summer. I saw her at premieres and award shows, and I watched her as she glanced across crowded rooms at Nick. I could see that she wanted to go over and talk to him, but something was holding her back, and I knew that whatever it was was exactly what was holding Nick back. It made me sad, but there was nothing I could do. It wasn't my place to get involved. It was down to them to pluck up the courage to approach one another, not me.

"Nick thinks that I should get highlights. What do you think?" Selena asked one day, twirling a strand of her dark hair around her index finger.

I didn't know what to say. For a start, Selena was beautiful just the way she was. She was possibly the most stunning person I knew, even before she grew up. She didn't need to change herself to make her boyfriend happy, and I think that, deep down, Selena knew that too.

"I guess that would be nice," I replied hesitantly.

"He thinks I'd look _sexier_ with highlights. Can you believe that?" she giggled.

I smiled and nodded. "That's great, Sel."

But it wasn't great. Her life had come to revolve around Nick, and to me, that was pretty sad. Selena prided herself on being independent. She took satisfaction in being able to live without a boyfriend when most of her friends were dying to find one. But when she found Nick, her life revolved around making him happy and being what he wanted her to be, which was pretty ridiculous, seeing as all he wanted her to be was Miley.

But I could see it - I could see that he was still hung up on Miley, and it absolutely killed me, because I could see that he was trying to transform Selena, the innocent bystander who had done nothing to deserve that kind of treatment, into Miley, someone who was the complete opposite of Selena. He wanted her to have lighter hair. He wanted her to sing to him. He wanted to take her out for ice cream. He wanted his mother to fall in love with her. I knew that Nick didn't mean to hurt Selena, but she had gotten caught in the middle of Nick and Miley's crumpled love affair, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop the inevitable trainwreck from happening.

I knew just by watching Nick and Selena that things weren't the same with them as they were when he was with Miley. She didn't put the same smile on his face as Miley did, and he didn't laugh as much around as he did around Miley. He didn't touch her as much as Nick touched Miley – in fact, with Miley, he would have gone out of his way just to stand next to her, never mind touch her. Selena wasn't Miley, and he would never love Selena as much as he loved Miley.

Joe and Kevin didn't even talk about Miley anymore, which was one step further than not talking to her. It was like all memories with Miley in them from the previous two years had been erased from everyone's minds; like they didn't want to even remember her. That almost made me sadder than the fact that Nick was using Selena as a rebound. Miley had once been their best friend. She had been like their little sister, and they had suddenly decided that, because things hadn't worked out between her and Nick, they couldn't be associated with her either. To me, things were getting more and more unreasonable as time passed with the situation.

Now, I think back to the summer of 2008, and I think about how I should have done something. I could have told the boys that their treatment of Miley was unfair and that they should have buried the hatchet with her long before they made that advance the following year. I should have warned Selena that her relationship with Nick would only leave her with absurd expectations, rivers of tears and a broken heart. I should have told Nick that Selena was worth so much more than he was willing to give her. She loved him with all her heart, but to him, she wasn't anywhere near as important as Miley had been. Things that summer were a disaster. It was like a snowball rolling down a hill, gaining more and more momentum and becoming more and more uncontrollable, and I had done absolutely nothing to stop it from crashing down around us all.

That summer, I should have made an effort with Miley. I should have called her and said, "Look, I'm sorry about how my friends are treating you." But I didn't. I let her suffer. I knew the pain she was going through from mutual friends, and I let that pain continue. I let them ignore her and treat her like crap when I could have changed it. I could have made stopped it all from happening.

That was the summer that everything started to accelerate out of control. Nick still loved Miley, and I had thought that Miley still loved Nick. But then the autumn came, and everything changed once again.


	7. September 2008

**September 2008**

That fall, Miley found somebody new; somebody who was willing to treat her the way she needed to be treated. Nick shouldn't have cared when he found out. He had Selena, a girl who absolutely worshipped the ground he walked on, and he had insisted that she had made him happier than Miley ever had. But he heard the news about Miley, and it was like everything about him changed. He began to push Selena away, and he started to bring Miley into conversations to try and find out more about what was going on with her. He shouldn't have cared, but he did. More than anything.

"You're friends with Miley, right?" he asked one day when we were writing together.

"As in your ex Miley? Not really, no," I answered.

"What do you know about her and this guy she's dating?"

"Not a lot." I looked at him. "Like I said, we're not friends."

He sighed and stared down at his guitar. "I heard that he's like twenty. That's got to be illegal, right? I mean, she's sixteen!"

I smiled softly at him and shook my head. "If I didn't know better, I would say that you're jealous, Nicholas."

"I am _not_ jealous. I have Selena."

I said nothing.

Even then, I should have seen the signs, all of which pointed to the fact that he still would have given anything to have her back. I should have known when he said that he wasn't jealous that all he really wanted to do was end things with Selena, find Miley and fix everything that had gone wrong between them that previous year on tour. But I didn't. I didn't pick up on it at the awards shows we attended before when he stared daggers at any guy Miley was speaking to, and I didn't pick up on it when he lied to my face.

He had written mountains of songs for this one girl, and they were all amazing. I should have realised that guys like Nick only write songs as good as that for somebody they love. And he loved her. He still loves her. He will _always_ love her.

"So, you know nothing about this guy?"

"Nope."

"Can't you ask Selena?"

"She's _your_ girlfriend."

He paused. "You know what she'll think if I ask about Miley."

I caught him searching Miley on Google and on gossip sites on multiple occasions after that writing session, trying to find out what was happening with her and Justin. It was driving him crazy. The rumours about sex and him basically living in her family's home were killing him, and there was nothing that I could do to reassure him that it was probably just the media exaggerating - mainly because I couldn't guarantee that until long after the damage had been done. I couldn't break up Miley and Justin, and I couldn't stop him from using the internet as a method of breaking his own heart. Her relationship was everywhere, and it killed him to know every detail without actually being able to speak to her.

Selena had noticed that he was distancing himself from her, but she didn't do anything. She didn't confront him, and she didn't ask anyone else but me about what was going on. Part of me thinks that Selena always knew what was bothering him, but she chose to overlook it, because that's just the kind of person she is. She isn't confrontational, and if she loves a guy, she will do anything to keep him, even if that means suffering in silence.

"Nick's been quiet lately, right?" she asked one night at my house.

"I guess so," I answered carefully.

"Do you know what's bothering him?"

I remained silent, knowing that Nick's secrets were not mine to tell. If he wanted to tell Selena what was going on with him, that was his job, not mine.

As the situation worsened, I became Nick's confidant. He told me everything that was bothering him; his mistakes and his heartache over the girl he had left slip away like sand through his fingertips. I wanted to help him, but what could I do? There was nothing on earth that someone like me, someone who hardly even knew Miley, could do to bring them together again.

He had been annoyed that summer when she spoke publicly about their relationship. He had always wanted it to be a secret between them, and it had hurt him to know that everyone was talking about something so personal and so private, but Nick can't bear grudges, especially when it comes to Miley. Perhaps that was why he so willingly held onto her, even when she had found someone else.

He practically breathed music that fall. He shot out new songs like there was no tomorrow, and they just kept on pouring out of him. It didn't take a genius to see that he had written them about his torn feelings between Miley and Selena. I noticed, but once again, I didn't comment. As usual, it wasn't my place.

That was another time when I could have done something but I didn't. I should have warned him that it was time to man up and confess his feelings to the one that really mattered. What good was confiding in me if the person that was most important in the situation didn't even know how he felt? I should have told him that things were just going to go downhill if he continued to bottle things up and act like his relationship with Selena was peachy. Everyone spent their time walking on eggshells and skirting around the issues, because Selena didn't want to lose Nick, and Nick wasn't ready to admit to anyone other than me that he still loved Miley. His brothers didn't even speak about the girl who had once held Nick's heart, and I didn't want to get in the middle. None of us knew how damaging our actions could be in the future, and I suppose we should have considered it. Maybe if we had, our lives now would have been so different.

Even in that darkness, their was something beautiful about their love story. His love for her from afar was like something from one of the great romance novels. His angst and his heartache aside, his love for Miley was so pure and so real that it's impossible to even begin to question it. Out of all the girls I have seen Nick with, none of them lit up his eyes quite like Miley did, even when she was breaking his heart from a distance.


	8. December 2008

**December 2008**

Along came winter, and with winter came the first anniversary of the Nick and Miley break-up. I had struck up a friendship with Miley over the last few months of 2008, finding that we had more in common than either of us had been willing to admit beforehand. My newfound friendship with Miley meant that I had become some kind of double agent, hearing the reports from both sides and having to reassure the other that things were not as irreparable as they seemed, all without revealing what each one had said about the other.

Of course, neither of them ever listened to me. Miley was still with Justin and Nick had (as predicted) just broken Selena's heart that fall. Neither of them was willing to push their anxiety and their doubts aside and try to work things out once and for all. Miley insisted on trying to fall in love in love with Justin, even though everyone knew where her heart really was, all whilst Nick insisted that he was fine being single.

December 19th was a difficult day for everybody. After having a heartfelt phonecall with Nick that morning, I found myself cradling Miley in my arms, rubbing her back and promising her that it would all be fine.

"I thought it would all be better by now," she sobbed. "I thought that it would stop hurting and I wouldn't miss him anymore, but it's never going to get better, is it?"

"You know it will, Miley."

"But he doesn't want me anymore! He wants girls like Selena, but I can't keep pretending that he's out of my head!"

How could I tell her how wrong she was? It wasn't my place to tell her that she was still the centre of Nick's entire existence, or that Nick had tried so hard to make Selena like her that it almost drove them both insane. Those words were supposed to come from his lips, not mine.

Maybe it was wrong of me to let her fall apart in my arms when I knew the truth about how they both felt, but I was sixteen. How was I supposed to know that everything would still be broken five years down the line? How could I have known what their future would bring? I thought that they would get back together and that would be it - everyone would be happy and they could walk off into the sunset together. Back then, I thought that Nick and Miley were endgame.

"I want him back, Demi. Even as my best friend. I just want him back in my life."

"He loves you, Mi."

What else could I have said to that? I purposely left my words open to interpretation. The word 'love' has two meanings: you either mean a lot to someone and they love you as a friend; or else they're _in_ love with you - spine tingling, butterfly inducing, head-over-heels kind of love. One word makes the world of difference, but it wasn't my place to make that distinction. They had to figure that out by themselves.

"But he doesn't want to be in my life."

"It's just hard for him. You have no idea how difficult the past year has been for him. Seeing you with Justin was –"

"Seeing _me_ with _Justin_? What about seeing _him_ with _Selena_ two months after we broke up!" Miley paused and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. "I'm sorry. I know you don't like to talk about the Selena thing."

It's true – my friendship with Selena made the situation even stranger and a lot more complicated. I was not just trying to stay loyal to both Nick and Miley, but I was also trying to avoid getting caught in a web of gossip about Selena and Miley. There were times when one wanted to talk about the other, and I was paralysed, unsure what to say without making it seem like I was being a bad friend to one or the other.

Selena and Miley had a lot more in common than either could ever know. It wasn't just their relationships with Nick that linked them. It was their loving natures and their willingness to overlook every mistake he had made as long as that made them the girl he worshipped. But they would never get the opportunity to realise that about one another, because despite the fact that they could overlook Nick's wrongdoings, neither could overlook the fact that he had turned to the other.

The truth, however, was that the only girl Nick ever had or ever would worship would be Miley. But how could I break the news to Selena when she in turn worshipped Nick, even after how he had treated her?

I exited Miley's house that December 19th and immediately called Nick back.

"Now really isn't a good time, Demi."

Something in me snapped that day. He sounded so broken and fragile and something in my head just snapped in two. I had spent hours holding Miley while she cried her heart out, and I had spent months trying to reassure him that his mistakes had not caused irreversible damage, and for what? For one of them to be as miserable as the other? What was the good in that?

"You need to fix this. I don't care how or where or when. I just need you to fix this with Miley, because I don't know how I'm supposed to juggle all of you falling apart and –"

"Demi, slow down!"

"Don't you get it? I can't slow down! I just spent the past year watching everything crumble down around my friends, and I can't stand it anymore. Today has been a nightmare for everybody, and I know that you realise that. You need to fix this, Nick."

Maybe that phonecall had been a mistake. Maybe it was a bad move to demand that he fix things and act like all of this was my business. But that phonecall made things better the following year, even if the good times only lasted for one short summer.

I had grown tired of trying to balance the three most important people in my life. Miley and I had only been friends for a short while, but she had already become such a huge part of my life, and I found myself trusting her as much as was humanely possible for me. I was tired of trying to juggle my time between her, Nick and Selena. It was my opportunity as well as my duty to step up and make them all work it out. They had been fighting and crying over each other for far too long.

I have made a lot of mistakes when it comes to my part in the relationship between Nick and Miley – the things I did do and the things that I didn't; and perhaps that was partly down to my own personal issues, and the battles I had to face myself. I had a lot of opportunities to help them and end this disaster. That December 19th was the one opportunity I actually took. Do I regret it? Not for one second.


	9. June 2009 (Part I)

**Early June 2009**

Between December and June, a lot had happened, changing everything as my friends and I knew it. Nick had finally grown a pair and followed my advice – he tried to fix things once and for all with him and Miley. I won't lie: I was immensely proud of them, more than I could possibly put into words. They had somehow overcome the initial awkwardness between them and were trying to get things back to that one-of-a-kind friendship they had while they were dating. They were trying to bring that one thing that made them 'Nick and Miley' back to the surface, and I loved it.

That April, their lunch date had helped them out a lot. Any of the tensions left over after they started talking again were sorted and they had even agreed to record a song together for the boys' new album. Sure, some paparazzi found them and the photographs were splashed across international magazines and gossip sites, but for once in their relationship, they were both able to overlook their complete lack of privacy due to the fact that they had found each other again.

We all were doing a charity single together that summer, and in June, we were due to record the video. I distinctly remember watching from behind the camera with Joe whilst Nick and Miley recorded their section of the video together.

"What happened between them?" Joe asked softly.

I wasn't really sure how to answer that question. How do you begin to explain where they went wrong? What happened in the final months of 2007 was just the tip of the iceberg – nobody noticed the underlying problems: their trust issues, the contrasting tempers, their strange love/hate mood swings. Their entire relationship had some kind of toxic element, as perfect as their chemistry was. Then, of course, there was the fact that I had no idea how to explain to him that his actions since the break-up had been part of the reason that everyone's lives had been so divided. The way that he and Kevin had automatically sided with Nick made everything change. It had suddenly become as though we each had to choose a side - we were either Team Nick or Team Miley, and by Joe and Kevin leading the way, it was as though they approved of everything that people said and did to hurt Miley. It was understandable that they choose their brother first, but surely even they understood that what they did never made anything any better for anyone.

As I watched them, their chemistry was palpable.

Tangible.

Undeniable.

When they looked at the each other, everyone in the room could feel something sizzle between them. Their talks had not eliminated their problems or melted some of their underlying tensions, but it allowed us all to look at them without seeing the warring exes and the bickering of the heartbroken teenagers and finally see that, underneath all that arguing, they still cared for each other beyond measure.

"I'm not really sure," I replied to Joe, my voice soft.

"He never really talked about it much," he said. "What happened, I mean. They ended things so quickly. After they broke up, he just acted like the past two years had never happened and that everything was as right as rain."

I found it strange that Nick didn't talk to his brothers about it much. It didn't explain why Joe and Kevin had acted like Miley was some sort of contagious disease that we couldn't even speak of. How could they have made her life miserable for a year if they didn't even know what had happened? It just didn't make sense that they would get involved in a situation they knew nothing about.

"They were good together," Joe continued.

Was that really true though? Were they really good together or had we just convinced ourselves that their love was some kind of fairytale that made them good together? When they were good, they were great. But when they were bad, they were freaking horrible. Their story may be one of the greats of our generation, but the great love stories aren't always healthy. Look at Romeo and Juliet: the fact that neither one could stand the thought of life without the other wasn't necessarily healthy.

I watched Selena across the room that day. I knew that she still was not over Nick. Every glance, every touch between Nick and Miley was killing her. She was trying to smile and act like everything was fine and that she was happy for them, but I had known her long enough to realise when she was upset. It was another one of those torn-loyalty situations for me. Was I supposed to be happy that Nick and Miley were finally making things right, or was I supposed to be supportive towards Selena and tell her that Nick didn't deserve her in the first place?

Because Nick _didn't_ deserve her. Selena was worthy of someone who would love her unconditionally, someone who wouldn't use her to get over their ex. What Selena needed was someone who was going to take care of her and worship the ground she walked on rather than wish it was someone else walking on that sacred ground.

We were supposed to act normal. Hell, Selena and Miley were supposed to act like best friends when the only things they believed they had in common were Nick, me, and the fact that both wanted to rip the other's head off. We were supposed to frolic through the grass and sing like it was something we did every single day, like none of us had a care in the world (except, of course, climate change). Obviously Selena and Miley avoided each other as much as humanly possible, and yet Selena's eyes were glued to Nick and Miley.

I sat down beside Selena during a break and nodded my head towards Nick and Miley.

"Are you okay with this?"

"Do I have any other option?"

"Not really."

"I still love him, you know."

"I know."

There was a silence between us as my words sank in for her. Everyone knew she was still in love with Nick, even after everything he had done to hurt her. Yet I knew that my acknowledging her love for Nick was different for her, because I saw all three sides to that sick and twisted love triangle.

We watched them together. I watched the couple I had admired since I was fourteen, while she watched her rival fall in love all over again with the boy she loved. We were watching from different perspectives, but we were seeing the exact same thing: two people who should never have spent a day apart, despite the nasty side effects to their relationship.

"He never looked at me the way he looks at her," Selena says softly.

"No, I don't suppose he did."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I know how much Nick loves Miley. There is no one on this earth that could replace her in his eyes."

I knew I was being harsh. Selena was in love with this boy, and there I was, basically telling her that she never had a chance with him, not now that Miley was back in the picture. But she was my best friend, and she deserved to know that she deserved better than a life of waiting around for someone who would not come back to her (or at least that's what we thought).

What Selena deserved was someone to look at her just like Nick looked at Miley – like the earth and the moon and the stars all were based around her, like nothing in this universe could outshine her.

I looked back at Nick and Miley that afternoon and realised that what all of us really wanted was to have a love like theirs. Whether it was Joe or Selena or even me, we all just wanted to replicate that adoration of one another and to feel like there was somebody who would love us wholeheartedly and unconditionally. All any of us wanted was to be the princess that Miley was to Nick; to have that sparkle in our eyes that Nick always seemed to have.

I don't think that any of us have a chance of finding someone with whom we can share that kind of love. That kind of love is a one in a million kind of thing - once in a lifetime. It's epic and endless, and though it is not always as pure as I once thought, it is innocent.

My mother used to recite her favourite Bible excerpt to me a lot. She used to tell me that love is patient and love is kind. She told me that love always trusts and love always hopes. Though Nick and Miley were not always trusting or patient with one another, the one line in that passage that was constant with them was the fact that love perseveres. There are no circumstances under which Nick and Miley could give up completely or hope that their lives together would unwind and fall apart. There was always that perseverance and that hope that some day, whether it was as a teenager or some day fifty years from now, their lives would entwine once again and they would become one once more.

* * *

**So, I know that you all want a little bit more dialogue, but I'm just trying to get some events over and done with so I can move on. I may not have made this clear from the beginning, but some of this story will stretch into the future. Once I get to the point where absolutely everything written is fictional, there will be a lot more dialogue, I promise.**


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